bottleneck
Antiquity favored the scroll. Later Eastern, Western and Islamic religious cultures favored the manuscript codex. Subsequent church cultures moved to the printed book. Current, more secular, cultures favor the screen. A sequential diorama of the four p’s; papyrus, parchment, paper and phone, depicts transmission and library cycles. The advent of more secularist culture and its media identity is signaled today. Constraint on the use of phones while driving is not construed as religious persecution. Social transmission, library roles, and median history are increasingly screen based.
The library role is central to the transmission and continuity of media history. The book format as been central to this history and this paradigm is now augmented by screen display. Library services, even library exhibits, are moving to the phone. An increasing dependence on screen display has shifted focus from textual content to audio and video content. This is apparent at mid-winter ALA with intense preservation attention to non-paper formats and their collections.
Library preservation has assumed a vital role in the transitions and transfers, but preservation centrality is also a feature of times of transition. We are at a bottleneck moment that emphasizes preservation. Collections were built across eras of higher availability of the given works acquired. Increasing unavailability and rarity of items emphasizes preservation. Brittle book processing comes to mind. But if we now pass to higher availability of screen displays that crosses the whole expanse of media history, the preservation role could become less apparent.
The preservation role could become invisible at a moment when greater emphasis is justified. No popular concern with preservation will associate with the abundances of screen display. Even the limits, deletions or outright interruptions of screen display will not directly associate with the need for preservation.
new normal
Future of collections has shifted from an assumption to a renegotiation. High-density storage, providing assisted living for collections, is the topic of conservators and curators (RBMS) and preservation planners (PAIG). Everyone is appraising the best way to attend remotely to aging physical collections. Meanwhile phone based library services delivery has shifted focus to audio and visual content that is abiding on non-paper media.
The take-home is that all physical collections are now special. This transition plays on the old dichotomy of Special and General collections that is now subsumed. The current reality is that real things, including last copy repositories for survivors, need separate management and are ancillary. All reality is special and a bit optional.
Collections types lament over lack of influence and disarrayed decisions, but it has ever been so. We need to actively advocate for and define the continuing role of physical collections, for back-up, mastering and authentication, in context of their screen simulations.